1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a mobile terminal and a method for controlling the operation of the same, and more particularly to a mobile terminal, that provides a 3D capture mode for generating stereoscopic 3D images, and a method for controlling the operation of the same.
2. Description of the Related Art
Mobile terminals are portable devices that can provide users with various services such as a voice calling service, a video calling service, an information input/output service, and a data storage service.
As the types of services provided by mobile terminals diversify, an increasing number of mobile terminals have been equipped with various complicated functions such as capturing photos or moving pictures, playing music files or moving image files, providing game programs, receiving broadcast programs and providing wireless internet services and have thus evolved into multimedia players.
Various attempts have been made in terms of hardware or software to provide more complex functionality to the mobile terminal implemented as such a multimedia player. One example is a user interface environment that enables the user to easily and conveniently search for and select a function.
A technology in which a number of images captured through cameras are combined through image processing to generate a stereoscopic 3D image has also been used recently. When this technology is applied to a mobile terminal, it is possible to generate a stereoscopic 3D image using cameras provided on the mobile terminal.
When the mobile terminal provides a 3D capture mode for generating stereoscopic 3D images, a stereoscopic 3D image is generally generated using images that are simultaneously captured using two cameras in the 3D capture mode. Because the stereoscopic 3D image is generated for a region that can be captured by both of the two cameras, resolution of the stereoscopic 3D image is reduced compared to resolution of a 2D image captured using one camera. Thus, to generate a stereoscopic 3D image having the same resolution as that of conventional 2D images, it is necessary to use image sensors having a larger number of pixels (i.e., high resolution) for the two cameras.